She had to admit that the first day outside of Konoha passed incredibly slowly. Every moment, she found herself thinking about the village, about Kakashi, about her job at the hospital, about missions, about Tsunade-sama, about Danzo, about ANBU… Everything reminded her of something she had left behind. The first to pull himself together, unsurprisingly, was Naruto.
"Think of it this way, nee-chan: it's like a vacation where we get to train at full power!"
"For starters, Naruto," she rolled her eyes, "vacations are paid, and right now, we're not getting paid a single cent for leaving the village for two or three years."
"And besides, we could have trained perfectly fine in Konoha," Sasuke added, smacking him on the head.
"I don't think so," Jiraiya interjected, glancing up from his map. "You never would have been able to truly train with the Kyubi."
"Kurama."
"With Kurama," Jiraiya rolled his eyes.
"Where exactly are we going?" she asked again.
"South, to start with. Even though I agreed to train you, that doesn't change the fact that I'm still Konoha's top spy, and the job never ends," he looked over his shoulder. "You have those magical tents Tsunade told me about, right?"
Naruto and she nodded.
"That'll save us some trouble from now on."
"What are you going to teach us?" Sasuke asked.
"Kakashi gave me a detailed rundown of your training. He said I could fight you to test your skills if I wanted, but I already have a good idea of what I want for each of you. We'll refine what you already know, you'll learn ninjutsu on your own, I'll teach you fuinjutsu, and most importantly… I'll modify your seal," he gestured towards Naruto and her, "so that you can use the chakra of K—of Kurama. My goal is for you to wield his chakra in its entirety to fight and defend yourselves against enemies who are no joke."
"I foresee a lot of self-training," she said, already knowing how this would go.
It would be just like that mission she had done with Jiraiya, or the one Naruto had with him while searching for Tsunade-sama. They would be alone for days while he focused on gathering intel, seducing women, and who knows what else. Sasuke, beside her, furrowed his brow deeply, realizing that she was probably right. She didn't even need their bond to know he was thinking this trip would be a waste of time.
"Ugh. Naruto, I don't know how you put up with two such depressing teammates."
"If I were you, I wouldn't talk too much," she hissed, though she wasn't actually angry. "I don't think you'd enjoy seeing a blur every time you look at a naked woman, would you?"
Naruto and Sasuke burst out laughing at the sight of the sannin's horrified, pale face.
"You can't do that!" he exclaimed. She raised an eyebrow. "Hn."
They walked for quite a while. Sometimes in silence, sometimes chatting, sometimes listening to Jiraiya brag about one thing or another… Eventually, they arrived at some random location that Jiraiya deemed perfect. He had them set up their tent, concealed behind barriers and under strategically placed branches, then made them sit on the grass to talk.
"Alright, brats, we've reached our first destination. There's a village nearby where I'm supposed to meet one of my informants in four days. Until Thursday, we'll be training in a clearing nearby, but when I have to leave for work, I don't want you poking your noses where they don't belong. Is that clear? You'll stay behind the barriers, training, and behaving like good little kids."
They nodded. None of them had any real interest in watching him "work." Still, the fact that he treated them like five-year-olds didn't sit well with Naruto, who shot him a glare. Sasuke and she simply nodded, tired and irritated. In the end, they ended up fighting the pervert one-on-one, starting with Naruto, who was practically vibrating with eagerness to make him eat his words.
Sasuke and Seina watched as he fought fiercely. Naruto used multiple clones, removed the weights from his limbs that had been holding him back, and combined ninjutsu, taijutsu, and shurikenjutsu. It was clear that Jiraiya wasn't going all out, but he wasn't playing around with her brother either. He defeated Naruto by being faster and smarter—distracting him with a genjutsu, executing a body switch, and using a hidden clone underground.
"Not bad," he told Naruto, who was now buried up to his neck in the ground, "but genjutsu is your weak point. Plus, you burn too much chakra using ninjutsu, which tires you out faster than necessary. But I like what I saw. Now, the other blonde—your turn."
Seina stood up. Watching the fight had excited her blood. She stood before Jiraiya, waiting for him to make the first move. When he realized what she was doing, he let out a chuckle before lunging at her—only for her to vanish with her magic. She reappeared directly in front of him, but he had already turned around, predicting that she would likely attack from behind. He realized his mistake a second too late—just as she landed a powerful, chakra-infused punch.
Jiraiya went flying, but he was used to his teammate's punches, so he only needed to use his hair to cushion his landing, touching the ground as if nothing had happened. Seina took advantage of the moment to unleash a torrent of boiling water from her mouth, while simultaneously casting an elemental lightning spell with her hand, combining both attacks mid-air.
Jiraiya used the mist created by her attack to escape, but she could still see him thanks to her aura-detection spell. She leaped into the air just as he tried to grab her ankle—just like he had done to her brother. The sannin shot up from the ground at high speed, but she repelled him with an adamantine chain infused with Kurama's chakra, burning him before he could dodge.
She jumped back, putting distance between them once again on opposite sides of the clearing.
"Maxima Tenebris."
The clearing was engulfed in darkness. As if large plumes of black smoke were emerging from her hand, quickly blinding everyone. Everyone except her. She couldn't see his face, but she could make out his golden outline, larger than those of Sasuke and Naruto, who were sitting under the branch of a tree. Jiraiya summoned his toads.
"Can you dispel this darkness?"
"We can try," she heard a female-voiced toad say. "Fūton: Toppa!"
Seina vanished before the jutsu could be completed. As she expected, it couldn't dispel her spell.
"Who are you fighting, Jiraiya-chan?"
"A new apprentice. Minato's brat, Seina," Jiraiya clicked his tongue.
Seina took advantage of the moment to get closer, hiding her chakra, her scent, and anything that could give her away, just as the ANBU and Kakashi had taught her. The moment she was near them, she cast the strongest Lumos she had, making them cry out in pain. She fired a petrification spell that Jiraiya dodged without looking, knowing that the light was only a distraction. They tried to trap her in a genjutsu, but to Jiraiya's misfortune, it didn't affect her, and he cursed under his breath. Suddenly, Seina sensed something strange. It was as if Jiraiya had... changed. His chakra felt different.
"To your left!" Kurama warned her, and she jumped away from an attack that was much faster than before. "He's using Senjutsu. This is the first time you're sensing it."
How was he detecting her? She wasn't hidden by magic, but she was doing everything she could with her chakra. She saw the aura of the toad on his shoulder, still, as if meditating, and decided to go after it. She let Jiraiya get closer, vanished with her magic, and then fired a point-blank spell to knock the toad off his shoulder. She heard the toad let out a small yelp and saw Jiraiya's brief moment of surprise. She concealed herself with magic again to see if there was any difference.
"Can you sense her?" he asked the toad, who jumped back onto his shoulder.
"No. This is the strangest thing."
"Hmm..."
Seina tried something she had never done before. She placed a hand on the grass and sent one of her adamantine chakra chains into the ground, coated in magic. Jiraiya kept searching for her, moving to avoid being an easy target. The moment he crossed paths with her chain, she hurried to grab his ankle and drag him down. Jiraiya struggled, but it was an Uzumaki chakra chain. The issue was that it was connected to her, so he could physically pull the chain to detect her location.
They fired a stream of oil followed by a fireball at her, but she countered with a torrent of water that ended up drenching them instead. The toad was sent flying, but Jiraiya remained trapped against the ground, holding his breath and covering his torso and head in a foetal position. She took the opportunity to wrap him completely in chains so he couldn't move and then dispelled the darkness spell.
She watched as the toad let go of the tree it had been clinging to and how Jiraiya coughed.
"Damn it..." he coughed a couple more times, soaked from head to toe. "I get it. Can you let me go? Thanks for coming, Shima."
"You're welcome, Jiraiya-chan. Keep us informed."
Seina released her chains. Jiraiya stood up, likely feeling his chakra slowly returning, and after a few minutes, he dried himself off with a modified hot-air jutsu.
"Since when can you use those chains?"
"For a few weeks now. So far, I can only attack like this and defend myself with about three chains before I lose control of them all, but I'm making progress."
"That'll be one of the things you'll need to train, then. You have perfect chakra control, you're immune to genjutsu, pretty good at taijutsu, and you know a large number of ninjutsu... Honestly, there's not much I can teach you beyond refining your existing skills and fuinjutsu," Jiraiya admitted. "So we'll focus on modifying your seal so you can use more of Kurama's chakra. Sasuke."
Sasuke got up from his spot, bumping fists with her as he passed. She sat next to her brother, accepting his congratulatory smile, and watched as her other brother fought with his Sharingan activated. They exchanged blows, kunai, fire and earth jutsu, and genjutsu that had no effect. The fight lasted a bit longer than Naruto's, but in the end, he succumbed to exhaustion, and Jiraiya managed to defeat him using taijutsu.
"Not bad either! You're going to have to practice genjutsu a lot if you want to reach Itachi's level, but you're good, I won't deny that."
"I brought documents from my clan to train on my own," Sasuke admitted.
"Great. All knowledge is useful. Aside from that, we'll refine your taijutsu, improve your endurance—your chakra control is good, but I want you to do chakra exercises to increase your reserves."
After the test battles, however, there was no more training for the rest of the day. They ate for a long time, waiting for Jiraiya to finish his meal, but to the team's disappointment, there was no more training.
"It's only the first day of the journey!" the pervert said. "Don't take it so seriously, or you'll burn out too quickly."
"Are you telling me we're going to spend DAYS without training just because you don't feel like it?" Seina asked, exasperated. "Then, do you mind if we make our own schedule for when we're not training with you?"
"I suppose I don't mind," he shrugged, curious. "In fact, I want to see what you'll come up with."
Seina conjured a large chart to create a weekly schedule. Naruto and Sasuke, used to the military-like organization she had adopted from her Auror training and thanks to Hermione, simply let her do her thing.
"Let's see… How about training for four hours in the morning and four in the afternoon?" she asked.
"Sounds good to me," Sasuke nodded. "It's best to do taijutsu training in the morning when we have more energy."
"Aha… Alright. From 8 to 10 in the morning, I'll put hand-to-hand combat and endurance, flexibility, and agility exercises. Then, from 10 to 11, kenjutsu, and from 11 to 12, shurikenjutsu," she noted. "In the afternoon, from 4 to 6, ninjutsu one day and genjutsu the next. The last two hours are free. I'll train my chains and start chakra exercises with Kurama's chakra."
"I'll train my Sharingan."
"Then I'll do chakra exercises like you, nee-chan."
"On weekends, in the afternoons from 4 to 8, we'll study theory for your jōnin exams. Does that work?"
"If we use clones intermittently, resting in between, we can progress faster in ninjutsu, chakra exercises, and theoretical studies."
"Sounds good. I need to count how many ninjutsu techniques Kakashi gave us that we still need to learn."
"Ugh. We're going to need YEARS," Naruto complained.
"That's exactly what we have, dobe," Sasuke smacked him on the head, rolling his eyes.
"Now that we don't have missions, I'll try to learn five ninjutsu techniques per week with the help of clones. Honestly, Sasuke, if I were you, I'd try to learn different jutsu from the ones I'm learning."
"Why?"
"Because with your Sharingan, if you see me use a ninjutsu, you can copy it without having to practice from scratch," she smirked. "Then you'd only have to practice a couple of times, but I think your dōjutsu would save you 90% of the work, right?"
"Huh. That's true," Sasuke said, slightly surprised.
"That's cheating!"
"Shut up, dobe. As if you two didn't cheat. You with your clones, Seina with clones and magic, and me with clones and my Sharingan."
"When will you modify our seals?" she asked Jiraiya, who was watching them with a raised eyebrow, quite impressed.
"Not until you're good enough with fuinjutsu. I see I can leave you to train alone for long periods, but I want all of you to know what to do in case… something goes wrong and I'm not there to help."
"When are we going to start studying fuinjutsu?"
"My God, Naruto, you're becoming more and more like your sister," Jiraiya said before stepping into the tent, ignoring his brother's shouts.
"Hey! At least answer me!"
Seina and Sasuke exchanged exasperated looks as they watched Naruto chase after the pervert.
"I'm going to write a letter to Itachi, telling him about what's happened these past few days."
"Good idea. If I were you, I'd start asking him to meet with you," Seina told him. "The fact that he sent a note to Konoha to warn us about the danger means he's not as distant as before… Besides, he helped me with your birthday present."
"Hn. You think it'll take him a while to agree to meet with us, don't you? That's why you want me to start sending letters now," Sasuke said with a slight smile. She nodded. "I was thinking the same thing."
"Also, instead of sending him a letter every three or four weeks, I'd start sending one once a week."
They discussed how to approach Itachi again while entering the magical tent. That first day outside Konoha felt strange. They had gone from being on high alert within the village, from the last few frantic days, to suddenly finding themselves relaxed, and she wasn't sure if she liked it.
"Do you think we'll ever manage to bring him back to Konoha?" Sasuke asked quietly, sitting beside her on the couch.
"Of course. Now more than ever, I believe it."
"Hn. Seina…"
"Hm?"
"Hn. Nothing."
She glanced at Sasuke out of the corner of her eye, but he seemed lost in thought. She couldn't figure out what it was just from his expression, but he didn't look extremely worried. More like he was deep in thought. She mentally shrugged. If it was something serious, sooner or later, he would tell her what he was thinking.
Shortly after that, they had dinner with Jiraiya, who came out of his room with ink-stained hands. Seeing him like that, she knew he must have been writing again. She rolled her eyes as she served the food. They talked about a bit of everything, but it was clear they didn't have much to say. It had only been a day since they left.
"Tomorrow at exactly 8 AM, we start training, brats, so don't be late."